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To show the new nation's concern that a healthy merchant marine was necessary for economic prosperity and a strong national defense, President John Adams signed into law in 1798 an act which furnished medical relief to merchant seamen.
A monthly deduction from the seamen's wage was used by the Federal Government to provide medical services for the seamen in existing hospitals or to build new hospitals.
The first marine hospitals were established in the port cities along the East Coast. As trade expanded along the inland waterways and the Great Lakes, the marine hospitals followed. One was erected even in Hawaii. The major function of the Marine Hospital Service until the 1870s remained the care of sick seamen. But after 1878 its functions were expanded greatly.
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